RomanTheatre - An analysis of the development and decline of Romantheatre.

Roman Tragedy - A brief overview of Roman tragic drama.

www.theatrehistory.com /ancient/roman.html (224 words)

History of Ancient Theatre(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)

If theatre is to be defined as involving the art of acting a part on stage, that is the dramatic impersonation of another character than yourself, we begin with Thespis.

Although Romantheatre may not be held in the same high esteem as that of the Greeks, we have inherited much from the influence of the RomanTheatre, including the word "play" itself, which derives from a literal translation of the Latin word ludus, which means recreation or play.

However, the greatest impact Rome may have had on the theatre was to lower it in the esteem of the Church -- an impact that was to retard the growth of the dramatic arts for several centuries.

The typically conservative and tradition-minded Romans of Republican times were suspicious of theatre's corrupting influence—or was it its anesthetizing esthetic?—a danger all the darker in the shadow of a permanent theatre, and their apprehension would not prove unwarranted.

Theatre, as it turned out, was one of the major weapons used by the emperors of Rome to appease, placate and distract the mob and thus maintain a firm grip on the state.

But unlike their Greek counterparts, Romantheatres were not necessarily built into hillsides, rather in open, public spaces, usually in well-populated areas, such as city centers, where a great number of people had ready access to the entertainments presented there.

History of theatre tells us that any activity that required a certain set of people (performers) to carry out the procedures and a set of people (audience) to watch the proceedings could be termed a theatre in a more broad sense.

Romantheatres attracted large number of spectators who were accommodated within the huge open air theatres.

RomanTheatre auditorium was semicircular in nature along with a roofed stage about 10 m in height.

The first Roman performance occurred in Rome around 364 B.C. The Romans have been known for using other cultures and practices and improving on them, and the same can be said of their approach to the theatre.

The Romans also had what was called naumachiae or sea battles in which lakes were dug or amphitheatres like the Colosseum were flooded for the occasion.

Christians were often the victims of the Romans' thirst for blood, and many were sentenced to battle to the death in the Colosseum.

While theatre in Rome evolved into its own distinct species, the Romans in the long run failed to escape the strong gravitational pull of Greek drama, a situation consistent with their dependence on Greek civilization in general.

This is not to say, however, that Roman authors were unoriginal or somehow shadows of their great Hellenic predecessors—they were not!—rather, their work was the extension of Greek art forms migrating across the Adriatic Sea and undergoing some modification, as they had to, for a different audience, age and cultural climate.

As loyal Romans began to sense they'd somehow fallen into the hands of a dictator—dictator was the title Sulla chose for himself and the word has been sullied ever since—for the first time in history Roman legions met their own kind on the field of battle.

This paper attempts to reexamine segments of theatre history in light of the Christian peoples prejudice to better understand the significant influence that prejudice had on the theatre, and to help clarify the historical arguments for and against theatre.

Romans believed Christians to be consistent and stubborn law-breakers, and, indeed, to the Roman mind they were.

The theatre is a form of entertainment, and the Roman idea of entertainment became partly to watch Christians die in the arena.

Proof that the public theatre was not a cheap alternative for poorer people is the fact that Shakespeare and other well known play writers wrote almost all their plays specifically for the public theatres and often despised performing a play in the smaller rich persons private theatre.

Because of the unpopularity of these theatres not much is known about their architecture except that they were small, had little equipment or basic machinery to assist behind the scenes work and had artificial lighting in the form of petrol lanterns.

It was common for a temple of Dionysus to be adjoined to the theatre and a procession would occur from the temple to the stage of the theatre in honor of the god.

In the tragic literature of the Romans, two epochs are to be distinguished: the first that of Livius Andronicus, Nævius, Ennius, and also Pacuvius and Attius, who both flourished somewhat later than Plautus and Terence; and the second, the refined epoch of the Augustan age.

The spirit of the Roman religion was however originally, and before the substance of it was sacrificed to foreign ornaments, quite different from that of the Grecian.

Moreover, desirous as the Romans were of becoming thorough Hellenists, they wanted for it that milder humanity which is so distinctly traceable in Grecian history, poetry, and art, even in the time of Homer.

www.theatredatabase.com /ancient/roman_theatre_001.html (3490 words)

Photos of Aspendus and Side(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)

The impressive facade and entrance of the remarkably preserved Romantheatre of Aspendus.

The theatre of Aspendus was built in 161-180 AD by the architect Xenon during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

There is no doubt that it is one of the best preserved Romantheatres in the world, largely due to the fact that later Turkish invaders restored and maintained it.

One of the most important influences on Roman Comedy (called the fabula palliata in Latin, after the 'Greek' cloak or pallium worn by the actors) was the Atellan Farce, a non-scripted theatrical form which made use of stock masks (characters) and slapstick gags.

The actors of Roman comedy were all men, and about five of them shared out all the different roles in the play.

The Romans also produced tragedies, and these were more straightforward translations and adaptations of the Greek plays of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

www.didaskalia.net /studyarea/romanstagecraft.html (873 words)

theatre(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)

Roman actors were men who wore colorful masks (women could appear only in mimes).

Roman theaters were usually open to the sky.

Regular plays were performed in the large theatres, but mimes were performed on rough wooden stages set up in the streets.

www.sbceo.k12.ca.us /~vms/carlton/theatre.html (466 words)

Roman Theatre, Orange(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)

The Roman Theater, in the south of the Inner City, is the best preserved and one of the finest of antiquities.

As the only Roman theater, Orange has retained the statue of the Emperor Augustus; it is 3.55m/11.5ft in size.

I have been to a fair few romantheatres, including quite a few in the area around Orange, and this is probably the finest I have visited (although the one at Dougga in Tunisia probably has a better location).

Adjacent to the theatre are the remains of a temple with circular apse, from the Hadrian period, a gymnasium, an altar and a nymphaeum; on the hill behind them is the capitol.

It celebrates the Roman peace and the veterans of the 2nd Gallic legion, that fought agianst the Gauls.

(Latin: theatre curtain; pl. aulaea) Roman curtain; curtain could be lowered into the stage to reveal a scene: aulaea premuniuntur, "the curtain is lowered," when the play begins and aulaeum tollitur, "the curtain is raised," when the play is ended.

(Latin: something that surrounds or circles; pl. praecinctiones) The surrounding Roman corridor separating the galleries of a theatre; corresponds to the Greek "diazoma"; use for the walkway, concentric with the rows of seats, between the upper and lower seating tiers in a Romantheatre.

English sing.: vomitory) Theatre entrances or exits for audience; vaulted passageways leading to or from the cavea; entrances piercing the banks of seats of theatres or amphitheatres.

This permanent Greek theatre was built between 342 and 326 BC (approximately 100 years after Oedipus was first performed); remodeled to fit the Roman ideal during the reign of Nero (61 BC), and last used for a theatrical performance during the 4th century AD.

Note the orchestra (as altered by Romans), the remains of the theatron and the footings of the skene.

The theatre was begun in 46 BC under the reign of Julius Caesar and dedicated to Claudius Marcello by Augustus Caesar between 13 and 11 BC.

Roman Tam and The 3 Bears was a double-bill directed by Krishen Jit, beginning with Between Chinas, written by Pek Siok Lian, and followed by Everything But The Brain, written by Jean Tay.

They get into a debate on the statue of King George VI in the park and the Hong Kong authorities' decision to replace the statue with one of Sun Yat-sen. The American thinks Sun a suitably democratic hero for the Chinese people and by extension, an appropriate national symbol for Hong Kong.

But when the lights dim and the characters launch into what appears to be a serious tribute to the diaspora of Chinese emigrants that "launched a thousand ships and spawned a thousand restaurants", the attempt at pseudo-philosophy is jarring and discomforting.

Roman Polanski, the film and theatre director, script writer, actor and producer, was born in Paris in 1933.

In 2000 he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz, became the town's honorary citizen, and his star was unveiled in the Star Alley in Piotrkowska Street.

This method, usually used more often in the theatre than in movies, makes it possible to follow the evolution of characters and mutual relationships in laboratory-like conditions, allowing the viewers to study the human nature, a subject-matter of all of Polanski's films.

The Romans adopted much of Greek religion and culture as their own, including theatre.

A slaveborn Greek, Livius Andronicus, translated Greek tragedies into Latin as early as 240 B. Later, the Romans favored the New Comedies of Menander, and raided them for material, mixing up plots and characters from different sources in a process called contaminatio.

The best known Roman comic playwrights are Plautus and Terence, who wrote in the period just before Rome occupied Greece in the first half of the second century B.C. (i.e.

www.southernct.edu /~watts/roman_theatre.html (205 words)

Amazon.com: The Roman Theatre and its Audience: Books: Richard Beacham(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)

Richard Beacham traces the history of the Romantheatre, from its origins in the fourth century B.C. to the demise of formal theatrical activity at the end of antiquity.

He characterizes the comedy of Plautus and Terence and the audience to which the Roman playwrights were appealing; describes staging, scenery, costuming, and performance style; and details a variety of theatrical forms, including comedy, tragedy, mime, pantomime, and spectacles.

Under one cover it manages to give a comprehensive account of the Romantheatre, while also providing a detailed description of the author's own ground-breaking research in actually construcitng a temporary Roman stage, and presenting his own translations of Plautus upon it.

List FOUR characteristics of "Senecan" tragedy- with regards to both structure and content- which later writers (specifically during the age of Shakespeare) would use as a guide for the composition of their tragedies.

Briefly define the Roman philosophy of Stoicism and illustrate how it found expression in the character of Oedipus in the extant Roman version of the play (in contrast to the Greek version).

Give three specific reasons why Christians during the late Empire were opposed to theatre- reasons that one could argue contributed to the theatre's decline.